Don't believe Hollywood: To be a top programmer, you need to be a team player, not a genius loner

Mr. Robot
USA
Stack Overflow, the online hangout of choice for programmers, just released its annual developer survey. It's the absolute best look into the state of the software industry you can find anywhere.

This year, over 64,000 programmers from around the globe participated in the survey, up from 56,033 last year. The Stack Overflow survey covers every conceivable topic, from trendy technologies to demographics.

Here are some key results from the survey:

Despite what shows like "Mr. Robot" would have you believe, the survey indicates that there's not much of a market for the stereotypical lone wolf genius, maverick programmers. Survey respondents say that communication skills and a track record of getting things done trumps the number of hours worked or bugs solved, by a wide margin.

Similarly, survey respondents say that the top two ways to measure a developer's success is by customer satisfaction and their ability to deliver a project on time and at budget. Technical knowledge clocks in at #3, and experience with the tech used by the employer is #4.

And if you think that most programmers started as child prodigies, think again. The survey shows that "among professional developers, one-eighth (12.5%) learned to code less than four years ago, and an additional one-eighth (13.3%) learned to code between four and six years ago."

As for technologies: JavaScript is still the most popular programming language, with SQL and Java coming in second and third, exactly the same as last year.

Despite the public perception of hoodie-wearing, Mark Zuckerberg-style young entrepreneurs, only 9% of developers work at startups. 43% of developers work at privately held, non-startup companies.

Beyond just technology, the Stack Overflow developer survey also reveals the lack of diversity among the programmers who work in the industry.

For instance, according to the study, women account for 7.6% of survey respondents globally. Women are "proportionately more represented" among data scientists, mobile and web developers, quality assurance engineers, and graphic designers than in other roles.

Finally, the study finds that 74.4% of programmers identify as white, followed by South Asian and Latino/Latina.

We'll be taking a closer look at some of the data coming from the Stack Overflow report over the next few days, so stay tuned.